From: Richard Wall
To: Frank Moore
Sent: Tuesday, September 02, 2008 2:14 PM
Subject: interview request
Dear Frank Moore,
I am a freelance writer working on a story for the Sacramento News & Review on independent and third-party presidential candidates from California, and I wanted to see if I could ask you a few questions about your candidacy.
Would it be possible to email you a few questions and receive your answers in the next few days? Sorry for the short notice. I can get a lot of information from your website, and will keep the questions brief.
Thank You,
Richard Wall
Richard Wall wrote:
Frank,
Thanks for the interview. I have an introductory idea of your positions from looking at your website and a couple of other articles. Is the information on the Wikipedia page that your website links to accurate for use as background?
Also, my editor would like an image. Can you email to me a high res picture of yourself, perhaps a graphic file of your campaign graphics?
Following are a few more questions. Thanks for your time.
Richard Wall
I read from a poem by you (I think) included in an interview on an internet site that included, “. . . .we crips, we misfits have always been the adapters, . . .”
How does that play out in your strategy to campaign for President?
Have you run before, and if so, how many votes have you received?
Is the publicity to your policies the most important thing, since you probably know you’re not going to win?
Speaking generally, your positions seem similar to Nader’s and the Greens’, is that a compliment (and accurate)?
Are you still having a victory party at VOX Gallery in Sacramento? What’s your connection to Sacramento, and do you have a base of supporters there?
Are there any issues specific to Sacramento you would address as President?
I get the idea of horror movie poster when I look at your campaign images. Was that the intent, and if so, what’s the message?
How much time do you spend campaigning?
How is it personally rewarding to be a candidate?
What’s your metric for success?
Please address any other issues in this vein you want.
Frank Moore wrote:
great, richard. good questions! yes, the Wikipedia entry is accurate. we will send you photos and graphics…mikee will.
that poem is called mutation is evolution. it is about how society needs us misfits…be it artists, “crips” [the “disabled”], visionaries, whatever…if society is to survive and to evolve into a more humane world.
We “disabled” are really the adapters society needs because we operate outside the boxes of “normalcy”, coming up with solutions from left field. I’m the candidate for everyone who doesn’t fit into “normalcy” – which is almost everyone. My having cerebral palsy does not seem to matter to most people. In fact they seem to see it as an asset.I’m a member of a suppressed group. But I’ve successfully fought discrimination all my life and had fun doing it! Most people get that and feel hope. Then they read my platform – and they’re hooked!
I’m not a part of the political system that has been corrupted by big bucks. I’m not playing by the unwritten rules, etc. It is one of the reasons why everyday people are excited about my running. The big bucks political system has been divorced from the everyday reality, hijacked by the addicts of obscenely huge profits. I am a real, serious candidate. I’m just working outside of their boxes. Outside of boxes is where the new possibilities are. Inside the limiting boxes is where political power is created. This is why the normal politicians stay in the boxes. This is why fundamental, humane change rarely—if ever—has come from power politics.
My platform is the star of this campaign! This campaign started with a t-shirt of The Three Stooges. Michael [“Mikee”] LaBash, who is one of five people I live with in a tribal relationship and who is our graphic/web designer, had a CURLY FOR PRESIDENT t-shirt. For Christmas two years ago Mikee made me a FRANK MOORE FOR PRESIDENT shirt. When I wore it, people started asking me what my platform was. So I wrote a platform up. Everybody who read it got excited, overflowed with hope, saying it expressed what they felt and wanted. Their reactions placed on me a responsibility to mount a serious campaign, to commit and surrender to it…and to hang on no matter where this ride would go. I never know where a performance or a project will evolve to. I have never run for political office before…except in college. But I have always been involved in politics in a bigger context…that of social change.
When I was born, doctors told my parents that I had no intelligence, that I had no future, that I would be best put into an institution and be forgotten. So the struggle for freedom, and against the powers-that-be has been my life. And it has been a continuous struggle, struggling with schools to let me in, etc. I have always been a radical. But that became obvious when I was 17 and invented my head pointer with which I type and communicate. The first thing I wrote was how I believed in a one world socialist government. I started writing political columns for the high school paper…as well as putting out an underground paper. I was in the first special class placed on a regular high school campus so that the disabled students could be in regular classes and be a part of campus life. I was involved in the civil rights and anti-war movements. This was 1965…before it was popular to be against the Vietnam War. In the school paper I got into a debate with a GI in Vietnam. I was sat down and told that, because of my political philosophy and activities, I was hurting the chances of the disabled students who would come after me. I replied that the goal was to get the rights for the disabled [and for all people] to be complete and equal…and that included the right to be political. I would not surrender that, or any other, right.
In the early 90s I and five other performance artists were targeted by Sen. Jesse Helms in what is commonly seen as the first battle of the cultural wars. This placed me in a great position to fight for our freedoms!
And I always have projects that confront political suppression in very sneaky ways. For an example, in recent years I shepparded a project to test foods for GMO’s and to certify products as GMO or GMO-free. We had an independent testing lab and over 300 natural food stores in both the U. S. and Canada that would use the results in deciding what they would sell. We developed this project from our local consumer protest. In the end, the project threatened the corporate “natural”/”organic” food industry [the likes of Whole Foods] so much that they staged a hostile take-over to kill it. This is the kind of under-the-surface politics I’m into!
Historically the goal of independent and third-party candidates is not to “win.” Realistically the process is rigged to prevent us from “winning.” The function of such a candidate as I is to introduce ideas, to induce change, to raise the bar. Within this context, my campaign is extremely effective. But on the other hand, I JUST MAY WIN THIS SUCKER!
Realistically it is impossible for any of us independent/third-party candidates to win…and for that matter candidates such as Edwards whom the mainstream media labels hopeless. It is not really about a lack of money.
First of all a large number of states either out-right ban write-in candidates or make it virtually impossible to qualify to be a write-in candidate. These states throw out the entire ballot with a write-in on it. This disenfranchises the voters in those states from the full choices. It freezes in place not only the 2-party system…which is a product of evolution, not of the Constitution…but the two parties that happen to be the major parties at the present moment. This has to change before we will have a chance of winning. One effect of my campaign has been forcing several states to clean up their write-in processes.
My platform is very similar to Nader’s platform…breaking the control of the big corporations over almost every aspect of our society for example. Nader wasn’t running when I started two years ago. I have taken his policies to the next level. And as for The Greens…I’m much sexier!
Yep, the victory bash is On!
Thee instagon foundation presents:
Saturday, November 22, 2008
FRANK MOORE’S CAMPAIGN
VICTORY BASH
8PM
$7 cover at the door
@ VOX GALLERY
19th & X Streets
Sacramento CA
www.voxsac.com
performances by FRANK MOORE and his CHEROTIC ALL STAR BAND, INSTAGON, More tba
Art by Frank Moore, Michael LaBash + more tba
It looks like I and my running mate Susan Block will qualify in more than 25 states as a write-in ticket…which is a victory in itself! So we will celebrate!
I’m closely linked to the vibrant art and music scene which exists in Sacramento. I have performed there a lot…at THE NOISE FEST and THE HORSECOW ART COLLECTIVE among other places. Many of the musicians in my band live in Sacramento. But to be honest, I’m not well-versed in the issues of Sacramento. Educate me!
Hey, about my campaign logo…that is what I look like! I ain’t your standard politician! I’m ready to get results, to deliver! There are many…those who have not delivered the end of poverty and hunger…who should be scared when they see my mug! But most people see the hope, the possibilities, their dreams…finally! And that reaction fuels me. It makes all the work for the last two years worth it! Really I can’t lose because the campaign has opened a lot up!
I want to invite people to go to http://www.frankmooreforpresident08.com/ to read my platform just to see what is possible…and if they have wanted those things…I want their write-in votes!
In Freedom,
Frank Moore
Richard Wall wrote:
Frank, thanks for the answers. Very interesting. Good luck in the campaign. Maybe the article in Sacramento will get you a bit more exposure there. By the way, I didn’t mean to suggest in the question about the poster that your image was scary, rather the whole thing as a graphic image seemed inteded to to evoke the horror movie.
On a personal note, it was great to run across your campaign and you, because my first novel, Fools Poll, is about a person in your physical situation who decides to run for Congress as an independent in Nashville, Tennessee, and wins. After 41 rejections from various agents over the years, it appears to be that the commercial book selling world isn’t up to it. So, I’m on to the next one. Anyway. My character is Hector Lawrence, and I wish you the luck of Hector in your campaign, because in his fictional race, he gets a lot of luck to accompany his sturdy determination, wit, and charisma—just like you!
In Freedom,
Richard
Frank Moore wrote:
well, after i win you should try selling your novel again!
In Freedom,
Frank Moore
